skepticlysm

Tag: fantasy

  • Book Pushing

    Book Pushing

    Someone on the Discord server asked for fantasy book recs, so I dug through my Kindle and made a list of stuff I enjoyed. The Lies of Locke Lamora is my favorite fantasy novel of the last 20 years, probably. And yeah, I left off a bunch of the gimmies. No Martin, no Sanderson. Lynch is better than both of them. Anyway, stuff I liked. There’re holes, obviously, but it’s a start, right?

    Traditional:

    ·      The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch

    ·      The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss

    ·      Codex Alera (series), Jim Butcher

    ·      The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan

    ·      Red Sister, Mark Lawrence

    ·      Black Company (series), Glen Cook

    ·      Cold Iron, Miles Cameron

    ·      The Emperor’s Blades, Brian Staveley

    ·      Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo

    ·      Heroes Die, Matthew Stover

    ·      The Belgariad (if you haven’t), David Eddings (don’t read up on Eddings, btw. dude was a sicko.)

    Urban:

    ·      Dresden Files (series; start at book 4 to get you hooked), Jim Butcher

    ·      Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo

    ·      An Unkindness of Magicians, Kat Howard

    ·      Rivers of London (series), Ben Aaronovitch

    ·      Alex Verus series, Benedict Jacka

    ·      Book of Night, Holly Black

    ·      The Rook, Daniel O’Malley

    ·      Last Call, Tim Powers (Tim’s brilliant, btw)

    ·      Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman (dammit, Neil)

    Scholastic (like they go to a magic school):

    ·      A Deadly Education (series), Naomi Novik 

    ·      The Magicians, Lev Grossman

    I dunno what to call these:

    ·      The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern (loved this book, btw)

    ·      The Near Witch, V.E. Schwab

    ·      The Craft Sequence, Max Gladstone

    ·      A Night in Lonesome October, Roger Zelazny (read in October, chapter a day)

    ·      Colors of Magic (series), V.E. Schwab

    LitRPG:

    ·      Dungeon Crawler Carl (series), Matt Dinnamin

    ·      Cradle (series), Will Wight

    “Cozy” fantasy:

    ·      Legends and Lattes, Travis Baldree

    Liked, but didn’t love:

    ·      The Will of the Many, James Islington

  • Fantasy-icism

    Fantasy-icism

    • Actually have a theme for today.
    • Before we get to that, however …
    • “Steph, I need some music on, but I don’t have my earbuds.”
    • Her: “I guess you better get your earbuds then. … Alexa, play Taylor Swift.”
    • Me: glares.
    • Her: laughs.
    • Alexa starts playing Taylor Swift.
    • Me: “Alexa, fucking stop.”
    • Her: more laughter.
    • End scene.
    • GenX hot take: Reels suck.
    • I don’t care what platform they’re on.
    • The ones on Facebook are the worst.
    • Like five seconds of nothing.
    • No narrative value at all.
    • Video of random shit with no purpose.
    • If that is what the younger generations are imbibing, we’re screwed.
    • I’m ready to buy a cabin in the mountains, move, and pound out rants on an IBM Selectric is what I’m saying.
    • JFC.
    • Another reason I hate social media.
    • I have a bag fetish, right?
    • Like backpacks and messenger bags.
    • It’s one of those things I would blow stupid money on.
    • Constant vigilance!
    • There’s this one from Code of Bell I’ve wanted for some time.
    • The thing is $239.
    • I do not have it, obviously.
    • It popped up in the Facebook feed the other day, and I clicked on it just to, you know, gander at it.
    • Virtual window shopping.
    • Suddenly, my feed filled with bags.
    • Waste of life.
    • That’s what social media is.
    • What it’s become.
    • By design.
    • Keep you distracted.
    • Keep us divided.
    • Part you from your money.
    • Rinse. Repeat.
    • Greed pisses me off.
    • F the rich. F the greedy.
    • Okay, there’s the pre-ramble.
    • I said I had a theme.
    • Nerdery.
    • The other day at the grocery store, I had on my Magic and Violence t-shirt.
    • (I can drive, but I’m not getting out a ton, mind you. One errand, come home, pass out.)
    • The girl behind the register said, “That’s the third D&D shirt I’ve seen today.”
    • “Really? Three?”
    • I come from the time of Satanic Panic.
    • We were actually in the den hanging out once when my dad burst in and told me I had to get rid of all my “satanic” D&D books.
    • No, sir. I prefer not to.
    • Did not.
    • Have always been a bit of a hybrid nerd, which I’ve talked about before.
    • The gang was into all the things. Cars. Sports. Video games. Skateboarding. D&D. Comics (some of us). Movies. Music. \m/
    • Wouldn’t be fair to call us “nerds” or “geeks,” necessarily.
    • But … I beat the genre drum often enough around here.
    • Could just be me.
    • I buried it during college because … girls.
    • Being honest.
    • The older I get, the less apologetic about it I am.
    • Fly your freak flag, kids.
    • You can be a nerd about anything.
    • Sports guys … you’re sports nerds.
    • What kind of person knows all those damn stats?
    • Bow up all you want.
    • Nerd.
    • Anyway.
    • Yesterday, I mentioned the rewatching thing.
    • The Fellowship of the Ring gets multiple rewatches a year.
    • We’ve been soaking it in the last week or so in pieces.
    • Not The Two Towers or The Return of the King.
    • Only Fellowship.
    • It made me think of how I got into fantasy in the first place.
    • Yeah, partly because my cousin Jeff gave me my first D&D rules set.
    • For sure that lit the fuse.
    • From there … books.
    • Read a couple Conan books by Robert E. Howard.
    • Then there was Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Weis and Hickman.
    • That book at that time consumed me.
    • I pushed it on all my friends.
    • I still have that copy, the one we traded around.
    • It’s shredded, but alive.
    • (Don’t go try to read it now. That third-person omniscient stuff reads like poop.)
    • That book opens in autumn, obviously, which is a motif in epic Hero’s Journey fantasy stories.
    • I feel like they all start in autumn.
    • The Eye of the World does.
    • I think The Sword of Shanara did as well.
    • And they all have that “normal kid (who’s probably the chosen one) gets recruited by a wizard to go fulfill his destiny” thing.
    • Could happen to you, you know?
    • Swords and Deviltry by Leiber did not, and those were the stories that really grabbed me.
    • The Gray Mouser stands as one of my favorite characters of all time, even now.
    • I don’t think you get Locke and Jean without him and Fafhrd.
    • Like I said, nerding out.
    • I haven’t gotten out of this godforsaken state enough, so I do it with books.
    • I love that autumnal ambiance all the great ones open with.
    • All this is subject to my nostalgia and spotty memory, mind you.
    • No research was involved in the creation of this list.
    • Last night while watching Fellowship, I found myself thinking, “I’m going to paint the Balrog to hang on the wall in my office.”
    • I could do it you know.
    • Probably another form of novel procrastination.
    • I’m out.

    Oh, go check out this from The Oatmeal. It’s about creativity. Read it (again) this morning. So good.

  • A Fourth of Pulp

    A Fourth of Pulp

    • Should’ve known better.
    • That’s what I’m saying.
    • Should’ve known better.
    • (There I go, repeating myself like bad movie dialogue.)
    • … than to have brought up Fourth Wing.
    • Yes, I called it a “fantasy beach read.”
    • That was not a knock.
    • I’m not a literature reader.
    • I pretty much only tread in genre territory.
    • I don’t want to read modern real-life drama.
    • I don’t want to be bombarded by non-stop five-syllable words, or pages of purple prose.
    • I want to escape.
    • I want to experience things I can’t here.
    • I want to go to the stars and explore big ideas.
    • Or see someone blow shit up with fireballs (of the D&D variety).
    • FFS, my book, the one I’m writing, is a “portal fantasy,” which means they’d classify it in there with Chronicles of Narnia.
    • So.
    • Fourth Wing.
    • Dragons. Blades. Fighting. Steamy sex scenes.
    • What’s not to like, right?
    • In the first book, the characterizations came off to me as a bunch of 16-year-olds who’re all supposed to be 21.
    • I still read it.
    • The story moves well.
    • You get drawn in.
    • And the two books after are better.
    • See?
    • Not knocking it.
    • Why do you read?
    • To get pulled into a good story.
    • Sure, you can separate books in terms of “quality,” I suppose, but at the end of the day, what’s the point?
    • Whether you like a book or not is personal.
    • Subjective.
    • Hell, take The Martian.
    • Helluva story.
    • Simple prose.
    • Loved it either way.
    • Even the metrics are subjective, right?
    • My favorite book series is urban fantasy pulp, for Pete’s sake.
    • (The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher for those playing the home game.)
    • Steph and I went to Hot Springs many years ago on vacation.
    • She bought a couple of books for the trip.
    • One of them was Dead Beat, which is the sixth or seventh book in the Dresden Files.
    • She chose that for herself, btw.
    • I picked it up when she laid it down at some point.
    • Hooked.
    • Two immediate reactions:
    • 1) This is awesome;
    • 2) Why the fuck didn’t I write this? Damn you, Jim Butcher!
    • I’ve since had the guy autograph a copy of that book in person.
    • What I’m saying here is …
    • Who gives a shit if someone does not like something you do?
    • Does someone else’s opinion of a thing take away from your own?
    • Love what you love.
    • That you do is none of their business anyway.
    • The Fourth Wing series is a fun read.
    • Was for me, anyway.
    • Sheesh.
    • And, again, she’s a multi-millionaire best-selling author.
    • I don’t know shit.
    • Where the hell was I?
    • Today is the kid’s last day of her Junior year.
    • Oof.
    • No.
    • I am not prepared.
    • Time is unfair.
    • Love her so much.
    • Being a parent is equal parts boundless joy and boundless terror.
    • I would not have missed it for anything.
    • Speaking of time …
    • Steph mentioned this, but tomorrow is the one-month mark from surgery day.
    • I do not understand how that is possible.
    • I have lost time.
    • Like seriously.
    • Black holes.
    • And I’m still passing out in the afternoons, like someone’s in the braincave flipping the switch to standby.
    • Yeah, I’m getting better, but the fatigue has been the thing.
    • Was not expecting that.
    • Sure, there’s some clicking in the head.
    • I think it’s the jaw.
    • That or there’s something sliding around in there.
    • Tectonic.
    • Heh.
    • Have you guys seen those remixes of the Golden Book covers of our youth?
    • Worth a find on social.
    • Irreverent in the best way.
    • You know, if you have my kind of sense of humor.
    • Last night, I walked into the dining room to do … something.
    • Was nearing bedtime.
    • Lights were out.
    • I looked up because there was a strange light in the corner.
    • I stopped.
    • Looked closer as my eyes adjusted.
    • Steph stood in the corner, back to the room, illuminated by the soft glow of her iPhone.
    • I started.
    • “What the hell. What’re you doing?”
    • She said something about an air freshener.
    • We have one of those Pura things. You can adjust it with your phone.
    • I dunno. I just work here.
    • I said, “Looked all Blair Witch over there. Freaked me out for a minute.”
    • Scary, but smells nice.
    • Four of five stars.
    • High five.
    • Read (and like) whatever the hell you want today.

  • Elevator Doors

    Elevator Doors

    • Yesterday …
    • Okay, maybe it was Saturday.
    • Yeah, definitely Saturday.
    • We went to Mi Tierra for dinner.
    • Had fajita leftovers.
    • They were not my leftovers, but I was told I could have them for lunch today.
    • Which is nice.
    • Nice to not have to worry about spending $17 for lunch downtown, you know?
    • I had my bag slung around my chest, my coffee in one hand, the styrofoam container with the fajitas in the other.
    • (Who still uses styrofoam?)
    • (Well, lookie there. Apparently “Styrofoam” is a brand name like Kleenex or Xerox.)
    • (No, you environment killing thing, I will not give you a capital S.)
    • Scanned in, went to pull open the big glass door to the 14th floor …
    • Which slipped.
    • And caught the fajita container and my arm, flinging it from my grasp.
    • Fajitas everywhere.
    • Everywhere being mostly the floor.
    • And my hand.
    • Which after multiple washings still smells like fajitas.
    • Sigh.
    • Apologies to the cleaning staff.
    • My fault.
    • How’s your Monday?
    • Mini fiction:
    • He nodded to the woman behind the security desk as he entered the building.
    • “Good morning,” she said.
    • He echoed the greeting, lamented for the moment he did not know her name. Well, if it were really a she? It looked like a she, but he knew it was one of the latest bots from Boston Dynamics. Probably had a model designation and not a real name like Sally or Veronica. Maybe he’d give it a name. Later, though. The timeclock waits for no one, however, and he needed to get upstairs for a meeting … which started in four minutes. At least it was a Zoom meeting.
    • He stopped in front of the elevator bank, mashed the Up button with the pointer finger on his right hand while the rest clung to the coffee tumbler. His other hand held a small square box of “gourmet” donut holes.
    • The button’s yellow-orangish light lit up.
    • He leaned around his left arm to check the time.
    • Two minutes.
    • Ugh.
    • The elevator beeped. He fought the urge to step forward, reviewing stock footage of all the times he tried to rush onto the opening elevator while people tried to get out. All the awkward apologies to people he didn’t know.
    • The doors opened.
    • No one got out.
    • He stepped on, looked at the bank of floor buttons and the card scanner.
    • Oh, right.
    • He fumbled with the ID lanyard, snaking his thumb behind the ribbon to extend the card toward the scanner. He wondered how ridiculous he looked if the security guard happened to be watching from their console.
    • Card mashed against the scanner. The light turned green. He dropped the lanyard and thumbed the button for his floor, then stepped toward the back of the elevator, started to rehearse what he might need to say in the Zoom meeting.
    • Then realized the elevator had not moved.
    • He glared at the floor buttons. None were lit.
    • He sighed, loudly.
    • “Work, you stupid thing.”
    • He repeated the card scan/button process. Why did they even have to scan a card still? Couldn’t they code these things with biometrics? Or even scan your card in your pocket? Why the old school tech? Maybe the building supes spent all the money on Sally.
    • He refocused.
    • Again, all the proper lights lit. Again, he stepped back, this time keeping his eyes on the buttons.
    • The lights, which lit for a moment, went off.
    • “Seriously?”
    • He repeated the watch dance.
    • Late.
    • Officially.
    • He stepped forward, tapped the “open door” button.
    • Nothing happened.
    • “C’mon, you dumb thing. Work!”
    • Talking to himself on a Monday morning while trapped in an elevator …
    • The elevator dinged, lurched upward for a second, then stopped, bouncing.
    • He struggled to keep his coffee in his hand as his arm whipped out to catch the wall for balance.
    • He glanced around, looking for a camera.
    • “Help?”
    • Again, it lurched upward, stopped. Lurch. Stop.
    • He crouched back against the wall, waited. Counted to 100. Why he counted to 100 he didn’t really know, but it seemed a reasonable amount of time to make sure everything was … stable.
    • He stood, stepped toward the buttons, then repeated the card swipe process and reselected his floor. The buttons lit up like they were supposed to. The elevator began to climb.
    • “Thanks for nothing, dumb elevator.”
    • He felt an increase in upward velocity in his knees, which flexed a bit. He flicked his eyes to the floor indicator as his floor came and went.
    • He gritted his teeth.
    • The elevator stopped at the top floor.
    • He waited for the doors to open, visualized the door to the stairs.
    • The doors did not open.
    • He leaned forward, mashed the “open” button.
    • Nothing happened.
    • “Open the doors, you piece of junk!”
    • He stomped on the floor.
    • Which opened. He slipped into the dark of the elevator shaft, coffee and donuts flying from his hands as he flailed. As he fell, he looked up and watched the yellow light of the elevator vanish.
    • Mondays, he thought.
    • …
    • End.
    • Yeah, I dunno. That’s what popped into my head this morning getting on the elevator here at the Arvest Tower.
    • I have never written list-based fiction before now. Nor let anyone read that kind of thing without massive edits. That’s a first draft. Heh.
    • Also, that was before the Fajita Fiasco of March 2025.
    • Also, I have to go read the comments from the Millennials in Friday’s list. I see there are new ones, but I have not gotten there yet. Been a busy Monday, even without the fajitas.
    • Also, this was all written to Iron Maiden’s Somewhere in Time (album, not just the song.)
    • Dunno, man. I listened to another of their albums over the weekend, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, which is one of those concept albums.
    • I have memories of the day that came out when I was in junior high.
    • Sorry. Middle school.
    • I really haven’t listened to Maiden since seeing them in Tulsa a handful of years ago.
    • They played too much of their new stuff, which stinks.
    • Purged them from my system for a while.
    • Okay.
    • I’m out.
    • You have a Monday.
    • Try to keep a good grip on your lunch, right?
    • Stay safe!